Dragon Ball FighterZ (for PC)

Arc System Works' loving tribute to one of the most popular animated shows of all time is not only an early contender for fighter of the year, but overall game of the year, too.

Feb. 7, 2018

Beside Fist of the Northstar and Jo Jo's BizarreAdventure, there are few anime properties that are as intrinsically suited to the fighting-game treatment as the Dragon Ball series. Spanning multiple series, movies, and generations of characters, Akira Toriyama's manga-turned-anime-turned-game series is all about buff monkey men, humans, aliens, and androids trading blows in actual earth-shattering battles.

The series' latest video game adaptation, Dragon Ball FighterZ, ditches the Xenoverse games' arena-brawling model in favor of 3 vs. 3 tag-team fighting on a 2D plane. The gameplay shift is just one of the many reasons Dragon Ball FighterZ is being held aloft as one of 2018's notable titles. Its beautiful design, intense combat, and accessible control scheme add up to a game one that anyone can jump into for Super Saiyan thrills.

A Journey to the West

Dragon Ball, particularly its Z incarnation, snared multiple generations of children and young adults with its unique visual aesthetic and tales of family, friendship, and frantic fighting. The Arc System Works-developed FighterZ manages to latch onto those core Dragon Ball tenets and integrate them as essential game elements.

Starting with the obvious, Dragon Ball FighterZ, with its cel-shaded combatants, looks nearly identical to the anime on which it is based. In fact, I say it looks better. Not only are the character designs consistently excellent, but the rich colors and animation are top notch, too. Whether you're enjoying Story Mode's cutscenes, the pre- and post-fight character interactions, or just the bouts themselves, Dragon Ball FighterZ comes off as a highly interactive anime. Take that not as an insult, but as a compliment.

That looks like a lot of characters on paper, but since the game requires you to form three-person squads, you quickly bang up against the roster limitations. Where's Mr. Satan? Or a teched-out Bulma? How about Videl? Publisher Bandai Namco has stated that a Dragon Ball FighterZ DLC pack is in the works, so hopefully, we'll see additional brawlers soon.

Hyperbolic Time Chamber

Arc System Works managed to incorporate the anime's familiar battle elements, from the swift teleportation to ridiculous super moves. In fact, if you finish an opponent with, say, Cell's Level Three super move, a kamehameha from hell, it obliterates the environment, causing you to continue playing in a battle-ravaged stage. And if you finish a fight using a Hard attack, you send your opponent flying off-stage into a mountain, building, or other such background element. These destructive touches truly reflect the nature of super-powered combat and give each match the appropriate world-breaking gravitas.

On the topic of attacks, Dragon Ball FighterZ has one of the most accessible, novice-friendly control setups in fighting game history. Each character has chainable Light, Medium, and Heavy attacks, as well as dedicated Special Attack, Super Dash, and Dragon Rush buttons. Fighting game newcomers can simply mash Light, Medium, and Heavy to produce impressive auto-combos, while skilled players can use those attacks, as well as the Guard Cancel, Reversal, and pressure-breaking Sparkling Blast to craft all manner of creative combos. Thanks to the three-on-three format, you can tag teammates in and out of battle, or use them as damage-dealing assists. As a result, Dragon Ball FighterZ feels more like a successor to the almighty Marvel vs. Capcom 2 than the lackluster Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite.

Thankfully, even with the inclusion of advanced mechanics, executing special and super moves is as simple as performing a fireball motion and tapping the appropriate attack button. There's no charge, pretzel, 360-degree, or half-circle motions. Finally, a developer in a mainstream game has realized that those arbitrarily difficult inputs do not increase the fun factor for anyone other than ultra-hardcore players who get off on the challenge. Fighting games are all about reads and strategies, so eliminating that input barrier is a huge move toward mainstream adoption. In addition, a well-designed Practice mode is available for learning the ropes, as is a Combo Challenge mode for learning how to link moves together for big damage.

Wishing Upon a Dragon's Ball

You earn Dragon Balls as you and your opponent perform combos, and the balls that you earn depending on the strength of your combo. For example, a 10-hit combo grants you the first Dragon Ball, while a 70-hit combo grants the seventh Dragon Ball. The game essentially rewards you for varying your combo strategies, but you can also auto-combo your way to random Dragon Ball drops.

If you collect all seven Dragon Balls, and have seven super meter bars in your back pocket, you can summon Shenron (a magic dragon who restores your character's health, revives a fallen ally, boosts your Ki gauge to seven bars, or restores five percent of your health and auto-restores your super meter) by performing a Light auto-combo. A the time of this writing, there's no way to deactivate Shenron in the game settings (some players may not dig the potential momentum-changing wishes), but given the activation requirements, it's not very likely that the dragon will appear in your sessions on a regular basis.

Online, Offline

Naturally, you can fight offline and online. When offline, you can train in Practice Mode, play through the entertaining (but overly padded with repeat battles) Story Mode, participate in the Arcade Mode, and play another local gamer. Oddly, when you first fire up Dragon Ball FighterZ, it thrusts you into its avatar-based online world hub, where you can do all of the above while connected to the servers. This is atypical for fighting games; King of Fighters XIV and Injustice 2, for example, start you at a menu and let you decide if you want to go online. The online is a bit bewildering at first, especially with the laggy nature of the hub during peak play hours.

Fortunately, the online play is a lag-free affair. I've mixed it up with other people here in New York City, as well as people across the world, and have yet to experience any significant in-game lag. The biggest issue with Dragon Ball FighterZ's online play is that there are not enough lobbies; during peak hours, it is not uncommon to be unable to access the public lobbies because they are filled to the brim with players. Bandai Namco really needs to expand the public servers, as soon as possible. This even impacts the creation of private Ring Matches, as all players must be in the same lobby to participate in the fisticuffs.

You earn Zeni, Dragon Ball FighterZ's in-game currency, for participating in the various game modes. You drop this cash on, sigh, loot boxes that grant you cosmetic random items for your online avatar, fighter, or player card. I would much rather buy the items outright with the Zeni, much the way Bandai Namco lets you acquire new gear in Tekken 7. You cannot, at the moment, purchase Zeni with real-world money.

My Windows 10-powered gaming desktop, which also packs a 3.2GHz Intel Core i5-4460 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 GPU, pushed polygons at a frictionless 60 frames per second at 1080p resolution. Your set up, of course, will vary, so you can tweak V-Sync, anti-aliasing, post-processing quality, textures, shadows, and effects to your liking. As a Steam game, Dragon Ball FighterZ supports Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud.

The game worked well with my Qanba Q4 RAF Black arcade fight stick and Hori Fighting Commander for Xbox One. I'm normally a stick guy, but the game's button layout seems much more fight-pad friendly out of the box than a game like Street Fighter V.

A Spirit Bomb to the Heart

Dragon Ball FighterZ is the rare licensed fighting game that's true to the original property, accessible to mainstream audiences, and capable of satisfying hardcore genre fans. It's a gorgeous title, but that beauty extends far below the surface; with its many advanced techniques, Dragon Ball FighterZ is sure to become a frequently played game in casual circles and in the esports scene.

About the Author

For more than a decade, Jeffrey L. Wilson has penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including 1UP, 2D-X, The Cask, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. He now brings his knowledge and skillset to PCMag as Senior Analyst.

When he isn't staring at a monitor (or two) and churning out Web hosting, music, utilities, and video game copy, Jeffrey mentors, practices Jeet Kune Do, blogs, podcasts, and speaks at the occasional con. He also collects vinyl and greatly enjoys a craft brew.